About the Office of Scale Research

The Office of Scale Research (OSR) is located within the Department of Marketing at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. It was started by Dr. Gordon C. Bruner II and Dr. Paul J. Hensel in the late 1980s. The office is best known for its production of the Marketing Scales Handbooks. Volume 1 was published by the AMA in late 1992 and was the first collection of marketing-related measurement scales ever published. Volume 2 was released in August of 1996, V3 came out in early 2001 and V4 (CB and AD portion) was released in 2005. V5 was released in 2009 solely in electronic form at the Marketing Scales site. V6 is in development and will be released at the website in the summer of 2012. The website is also home to a comprehensive library of scale reviews from the previous volumes and continuing work.

The OSR encourages the research of measurement-related issues. This effort has led to the development of a few "technical reports" that deal with a variety of scaling issues. Some of the papers compare the psychometric quality of scales purported to measure the same construct (e.g., role conflict, power, attitude- toward-the-ad) while others provide an audit of the scales available in a broad topical area (e.g., advertising, consumer behavior).

Although top marketing journals will occasionally publish articles that focus totally on a scaling issue, more information is being produced than the major journals are willing/able to publish. Dr. Bruner feels the field is mature enough now that a journal totally devoted to scales issues is needed. Until such time when a journal exists, he has decided to use the OSR as a sort of clearing house for such papers.

Comments: Dr. Gordon C. Bruner II